American Occupational Structure

Peter M. Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan pen a classic source of empirical information on the patterns of occupational achievement in American society.

Based on an unusually comprehensive set of data, The American Occupational Structure is renowned for its pioneering methods of statistical analysis, as well as its far-reaching conclusions about social stratification and occupation mobility in the United States.

Presenting “sociology at its scientific best” (Fortune), The American Occupation Structure received the Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association in recognition of its significant contribution to the social sciences.

Peter M. Blau is Quetelet Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and a past president of the American Sociological Association. He is the author of Inequality and Heterogeneity: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure.